PARTICAL PHYSICS:

Now guys that is what I call REAL physics...something that begins effecting this universe from the core of its core, and then goes on influencing to much bigger levels, levels much bigger than we human can possibly comprehend, levels we can't even possibly imagine about,,, from the bloooody big space out there to the tiny atom, to even tinier subatomic particles, and still tinier strings of pure energy

An introduction to Particle Physics:

Particle physics is the study of the basic elements of matter and the forces acting among them. It aims to determine the fundamental laws that control the make-up of matter and the physical universe. RAL is one of the leading laboratories investigating this.

Probing Particles:

Experiments at particle accelerators, such as LEP, where sub-atomic particles collide at very high energies, reveal details of particle sand conditions that prevailed just after the Big Bang over 15 billion years ago. Most experiments involve large international collaborations and are performed at overseas laboratories such as CERN in Geneva and DESY in Hamburg. These collaborations typically involve more than 300 people and the work at CERN is supported by 19 European countries.

Accelerators:

The accelerator is the basic tool of particle physics. It allows us to create the particle collisions that we want to study in our own laboratories. The high energy collisions between particles that physicists are interested in do occur naturally but the events are unpredictable and the number that can be observed (in cosmic rays) is low. Accelerators work by accelerating charged particles using electric fields. A linear accelerator accelerates particles in a straight line: the biggest linear machine, in Stanford, California, is two miles long. Circular machines are more common. As well as accelerating the particles using an electric field, circular accelerators bend their paths using a magnetic field. In a machine like LEP at CERN, where they have opposite charges, the particles being accelerated travel in opposite directions until they are forced to collide. The drawback is that the faster a particle travels, the harder it is to keep it moving in a circle but, in the largest circles (LEP is the largest in the world with circumference of 27km) less energy is wasted when accelerating particles to high speeds.

Detectors:

Detectors are used to examine tracks made by the new particles that are produced when accelerated particles collide. In the early days photographic film, spark chambers and bubble chambers were used. Since the late 1960s electronic detectors have taken over. There are two basic kinds - tracking detectors which reveal the trajectories of individual charged particles, and calorimeters which measure energies. A modern electronic detector is built like an onion, with layers of trackers and calorimeters to give as much information as possible about the particles produced in each collision.

Antimatter:

Antimatter is very much like ordinary matter, but it carries the opposite charge. An antielectron (a positively charged electron) is just another way of describing a positron. Crashing matter and antimatter together is now a daily occurrence in machines like LEP. The fact that the universe seems to be full of matter and not antimatter is one of the most baffling problems in modern physics. At the time of the Big Bang, matter and antimatter are believed to have been produced in equal quantities. What seems to have happened is that, at a somewhat later time, collisions between the two types have destroyed all the antimatter but left a little of the matter behind, from which our universe is made. The reason may be due to a tiny asymmetry in the way particles of matter and antimatter decay, thereby creating an excess of matter.

Big Bang Science:

It is thought that the universe began around 15 billion years ago in the Big Bang and that it has been cooling down and expanding ever since. For physicists, the most interesting time was within the very first moment (within 10^-34 seconds) where the conditions were so extreme that the laws of physics as we know them today didn't apply. After about 0.01 seconds, the universe was cold enough for quarks to stick together, forming protons and neutrons. These formed the first helium nuclei after 100 seconds, but the first atoms didn't appear for 100,000years. After a few billion years stars began to form, using hydrogen and helium to build the heavier elements that make up the familiar world around us -elements heavier than helium owe their origin to stars. The Big Bang theory correctly predicts that about 75% of all visible matter is hydrogen and about 25% helium. (All other matter accounts f or less than 1 %.)Another great success of the theory is the presence of background microwave radiation in our universe, a relic of the Big Bang.

Dark Matter:

We know from observing the rotation of galaxies that about 90% of the matter they contain is invisible to us. The matter we can't see is called "missing" or dark" matter. The amount of dark matter contained in the universe is crucial to its fate. If it is greater than a certain amount, the universe will eventually collapse. Below this, and it will keep on expanding for ever. There are many ideas about what dark matter might be, ranging from exotic new particles to black holes. One idea says that the neutrino, an abundant fundamental particle which is thought to have zero mass, actually has a tiny mass. However, neutrinos generally move about the universe quickly and are not stuck together in clumps, as they would need to be to explain the rotation of the galaxies. The most recent explanations of dark matter therefore use a combination of "hot" matter, like neutrinos, and "cold" matter like black holes. The true answer has yet to be found. Underground experiments on dark matter are taking place now.